Last week, news spread quickly that Amazon suddenly—and perhaps heartlessly—cut off thousands of vendors by simply not placing orders with them. This, in turn, prompted panic, as these companies would have no choice but to sell directly to Amazon customers or be...

Today, many brands operating on Amazon’s Vendor Central system had a surprising start to the week: their regular Purchase Orders from Amazon that show up like clockwork every Monday just didn’t appear. Some notifications sent by Amazon cited technical...